Streams of Mercy

In a recent edition of The Presbyterian Outlook, I came across an article on “Faithfulness” by Leslie Scanion:

“The stories of churches serving in a pandemic year are full of faithfulness. Faithfulness not defined as unfettered success, but as ministry done at full sprint and in new ways – sometimes in desperation or wild hope. The hallmarks exhaustion, creativity, technological experimentation, phone calls and letters to the lonely and grieving, communion in coffee cups, arguments over masks, vaccinations, singing and what is safe …

Faithfulness is forged in confronting the pressure from parishioners who are vaccinated and who want the church to be open even before the pastor and staff were able to get vaccinated – or from people who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine and won’t wear masks, but want to sit in the front pew … Looking ahead, it’s calculating what comes next. How will and how should the church be different going forward? What does it mean to be faithful to innovation – knowing the church might not have been willing to make those changes without the hammer of a pandemic? What are the lessons of COVID-19?

… Sometimes grace appears on the new unmarked road…

Despite the separation despite the loneliness, despite the fear, despite all the illness, we could still remain faithful in the way we walked and carried ourselves in the world … It’s been very exciting to watch – not only churches using new technology, but to actually adopt a new way of being church, a new way of experiencing community … The pandemic has raised new possibilities for what community might look like going forward. In many ways, we are standing on the precipice of being a new church! We can’t go back, because doing that discounts everything we have been through.”

The phrase “sometimes grace appears on the new unmarked road” found a place in my heart, and I want to be faithful in recognizing the gifts of grace that come from these months of disruption, upheaval and change in all of life. I’ve heard it said again and again in recent months that “history is watching us.” As we look back on today from a new day, may we be found faithful.

Elizabeth